The first full-length album from Modest Mouse, This Is a Long Drive For Someone with Nothing to Think About, released in 1996 on Up Records is one of my favorites. The last track on the record is “Space Travel Is Boring” and is under two minutes long, but it’s fantastic. Considering myself a Modest Mouse purist, on the surface it might seem that hearing Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon, for his Modest Mouse covers record Tiny Cities, 2005 via his personal record label, Caldo Verde) stretch the song out into a downtrodden, weary meditation would be a bad thing. But oh ho ho no… alas, it is quite the opposite. He turns the song into his own, making the original of rhythmically complex structure hardly recognizable with an acoustic ballad, and the payoff is re-imagining the song in a new, welcomed way. You can hear the original after the jump, but check out Kozelek’s interpretation below.

Sun Kil Moon also made an AC/DC tribute album titled What’s Next to the Moon.

I also like his version of “Dramamine”, which stays a little more true to the general outline of the Modest Mouse original.

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